A still life of tulips, roses, lily-of-the-valley, anemones, martagon lilies and other flowers in a basket

JACOB MARRELL

Frankenthal 1613/14 - 1681 Frankfurt-am-Main

Ref: CC 113

A still life of tulips, roses, lily-of-the-valley, anemones, martagon lilies and other flowers in a basket

Signed with initials and dated lower right: . JM . F / Ao 1645

Oil on panel: 17 ¾ x 23 5/8 in / 45.1 x 60 cm

Frame size: 24 x 30 in / 61 x 76.2 cm

Provenance:

Medlycott family, Ven House, Milbourne Port, Somerset, before 1957[1];

by descent to Sir Mervyn Medlycott, 9th Bt. (1947-2021), Sandford Orcas Manor, Dorset;

by descent

Jacob Marrel spent his career between western Germany and the Netherlands, forming a link between the Frankenthal school of still life painting and the Flemish tradition of Jan Davidsz. de Heem. In 1645, when this painting was made, he was living in Utrecht. He was influenced by the work of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger (1609-1645), who lived in the city and whom Marrel probably knew personally.

Marrel favoured bright, clear colours, with a balance of warm pinks, red and gold with blues and white. Tulips are the most glamorous flowers in the composition, their flamelike petals twisting in the light. He chooses rare and exquisitely marked blooms, described with a botanist’s precision. Tulips were traded in Frankfurt from early in the seventeenth century and they appear in florilegia in and around that city from 1611[2]. Marrel was caught up in the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1630s, dealing in the bulbs and executing a number of watercolours for Tulip Books codifying the varieties, which were given flamboyant names such as Semper Augustus or Admirael Tromp[3]. In fact, no-one could predict which bulbs would ‘break’ into the glorious, coloured flames that were so prized. The effect was caused by a virus, which was not understood at the time. Marrel, like so many speculators, had his fingers burned when the tulip bubble collapsed in 1637.

Marrel crams twelve species of flowers into a magnificent arc around a loosely-woven wicker basket, setting them against a dark background, which enhances their sculptural solidity. In 1645 tulips were still highly-prized, comparatively rare cultivars. Other flowers, like the violas, columbine and love-in-a-mist (nigella), were long familiar in European gardens. Marrel, like most of his artist contemporaries, brings together flowers which bloom over a long period, from the double narcissus in early spring, to the lily-of-the-valley, a flower which marks May Day in several European countries, to the roses and martagon lilies of June. They would have been studied individually and the bouquet composed from drawings or perhaps oil sketches.

The composition is built around contrasts of yellow and blue, for example the nigella and single yellow roses to the right of the basket, with juxtapositions of white and red – in the striped tulips and the pairing of the narcissus and rose to the left. Smaller, more delicate flowers and foliage in the shadowed background have the effect of pushing the chief elements of the bouquet into prominence. Marrel paints with a creamy solidity that brilliantly conjures up light playing over petals, notably in the purple-and-white tulip that protrudes over the edge of the table top, a tour-de-force of illusionism. We can see the fibrous edges of the foreground tulips where the stalks have been plucked, perhaps evoking a hint of vanitas, for they will surely lose their beauty quickly without any water.

Marrel’s fascination with the natural world extended to animals: he includes seven species of insect in the painting, including the magnificent, male stag beetle to the right of the table top. Their inclusion reflects the seventeenth century enthusiasm for all aspects of natural history, with advances in taxonomy and the ferment of interest in new species discovered across the burgeoning Dutch trading empire.

Note on the provenance

This painting was in the collection of the Medlycott family at Ven House, Milborne Port, Somerset certainly before 1957 and probably since at least the nineteenth century. The handsome red brick and stone Ven House was built 1698-1700 and enlarged by James Medlycott c.1725-30. Ven was sold by Sir Hubert Medlycott in 1957. The painting by Marrel subsequently hung at the Medlycotts’ seat of Sandford Orcas Manor, Dorset, about six miles from Ven. Sandford Orcas Manor was built c.1550 for Edward Knoyle and passed into the Hutchings family in 1736. In 1914 it was inherited by a cousin of Hubert Hutchings, Sir Hubert Medlycott, 6th Bt. Sandford Orcas was sold after the death of Sir Mervyn Medlycott, 9th Bt. (1947-2021) and the painting has descended in his family.

JACOB MARREL

Frankenthal 1614 - 1681 Frankfurt-am-Main

Jacob Marrel was one of the masters of the Utrecht and Frankenthal schools of still life painting, forming an important link between the Bosschaert dynasty and the Flemish tradition of Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606-1683/4) and Daniel Seghers (1590-1661). He was also an accomplished draughtsman, engraver and art dealer.

Marrel was born in Frankenthal, south of Frankfurt, in 1614 and moved with his family to Frankfurt-am-Main in 1624, where he became a pupil of Georg Flegel (1566-1638) in 1627. From c.1630 to 1649 Marrel lived in Utrecht, where he was influenced by the works of Roelant Savery (1556-1639) and the members of the Bosschaert Dynasty, particularly Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger (1609-1645), whom he probably knew personally. In 1641 Marrel married Catharina Elliot. After her death in 1649, he returned the following year to Frankfurt and in 1651 married Johanna Sibylla Heinius, widow of the famous engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian I (1593-1650). Among his pupils were his stepdaughter Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), who became a renowned naturalist and scientific illustrator, and the flower painter Abraham Mignon (1640-1679). Marrel made frequent return trips to Utrecht until 1659, when he settled again in Utrecht, with shorter sojourns in Frankfurt. He died in Frankfurt in 1681.

Marrel’s earliest flower pieces date from 1630 and show the influence of Savery and Ambrosius Bosschaert II. Dated works are known from 1634 to 1681. From the late 1640s he was influenced by Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606-1684), sometimes copying or imitating his work but signing J. Marellus fecit ab Heem. His oeuvre encompasses bouquets, flowers strewn on a table top, sumptuous still lifes, some with birds or Vanitas, and a single forest-floor piece. In the 1630s he was caught up in the so-called Tulip Mania, trading in the bulbs and producing exquisite watercolours for Tulip Books. Like so many, he was stung when the market crashed in 1637.

The work of Jacob Marrel is represented in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Kronborg Castle, Copenhagen and the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.

[1] According to an inscription on the reverse of the nineteenth century frame, it was hung in the study, opposite the window.

[2] Sam Segal and Klara Alen, Dutch and Flemish Flower Pieces, vol. I, Leiden 2020, p.289, note 61.

[3] Tulip Books by Marrel are in the collection of the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia.